A Message from the Kashrut Director, Rabbi J.D. Conway

Ingredients for Life

Eating is an activity people indulge in all day, every day. First coffee, then breakfast, onto elevenses, lunch, another snack, and then to another coffee! As a result, people brought up from childhood keeping kosher have a discipline ingrained within them - checking ingredients, checking their watches to see if they are ‘milky’, deciding this be can eaten,

this cannot. Hence, when they come to face major ethical dilemmas in business, for example, or a severe moral temptation in their social life, they will already have created an ingrained sense of identity in their subconscious,“I am a Jew, and these are not my ingredients for life.”

Another more mystical reason is suggested for the primacy of kashrut in Jewish life.

“You are what you eat” is a well known saying endorsed by Rabbinic teachings. Summing up the kashrut rules, the Torah states, “These foods you may eat…these you may not…so that you shall sanctify yourselves and be holy.” The Talmud explains that eating non-kosher food clogs up the arteries

of the soul. We are, it seems, spiritually allergic to non-kosher foods, the consumption of which impairs our performance as Jews.

Today everyone is familiar with the reality that you are what you eat; that even a tiny amount of E102, E127 or E124 can affect the behaviour of a hyperactive child, and how carefully the coeliac and the lactose intolerant must examine their ingredient list. Which school today has not been

designated a nut-free zone? Even the tiniest amount of a problematic ingredient can affect someone’s health, their behaviour and even their personality! And so it is, with our inner personality, our spiritual sensitivity; the Talmud teaches that even the tiniest non-kosher ingredient can affect us. Therefore, traditional Jewish wisdom teaches us to eat what is healthy, not just for the body, but also for the soul! Other religions teach about self denial and avoiding physical gratification. Judaism teaches the integration of body and soul.

In our morning prayer, there is a blessing thanking God for giving us a healthy, functioning body which concludes. “Blessed are you God who heals all flesh and does wondrously.” The next blessing thanks God for the soul:

“My God, the soul you placed within me is pure…” The meaning of the phrase “and does wondrously” is that God takes physical flesh and combines it with the pure soul. This is the genius of the wisdom of the Torah, that it understands the intertwined nature of body and soul, and teaches us how to live lives which integrate body and soul, spirituality and worldly reality.

Man is not just a higher animal but a synthesis of earthly and spiritual elements. The most physical of our activities must have a spiritual dimension. Following the kashrut laws, the ingredients for life, ensures that not just eating but living, is suffused with a spiritual dimension.

May we all be blessed with “chaye arichey umezune revichey”- long life and abundant food!

Rabbi Jeremy Conway
Director, LBD Kashrut Division

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